Are you on your way to be an independent consultant or starting a Software Testing startup? Do you feel it is more like a leap of faith or is it a very calculated step taken only when you are 100% sure of success? In order to succeed, there are some general heuristics that need to be taken care of, irrespective of which business you start but then there are specifics about the nature of business and subject matter involved that hold true for a particular kind of enterprise.

Introduction In 1987, the movie Platoon swept the Academy Awards with 8 distinct awards including Best Picture. Anyone that watched the movie Platoon recalls Charlie Sheen’s role as “Chris Taylor” – a privileged young man who decided to leave his university studies to...

Exploratory testing can be termed: the freedom of the tester’s passion to appreciate the software. Most of the script-based testing is observed to work under some commonly followed work procedures. But under some of the varying demands of the customer...

With a formal training in business informatics, Huib Schoots began his professional career as a programmer, about fifteen years ago. He quickly realized that programming was not for him and transitioned into software testing. Since that time Huib has held many roles...

There are two dangerous practices that are rampant in performance testing right now – shrinking or removing think times and extrapolation of test results. Collectively we need to work to put an end to these practices and start testing more realistically to...

I have been working as an automation specialist in one form or another since the first hour of my first job. Since then, I have helped a number of organizations and consultants learn how to automate. Inevitably the automation solution revolves around their specific...

Switching from Waterfall to Agile is known to directly impact testers. It’s true; the change can be difficult for some of us. However, fear not, some things never change regardless of the development approach. I’ve put together what I think are the golden...

Congratulations! You’ve just joined a company as the new QA Manager and you’re eager to dive right in and be successful. What will be your first steps besides familiarizing yourself with the applications under test? Our recommendation is to thoroughly...

I was recently approached about starting a testing organization for a company in the Midwest. The task is a large initiative, and one that not many people get an opportunity to partake in. Most managers are asked to re-organize, maintain, or grow a previously existing...